PAUL LEVERKUHN, M.D. 199 
ORNITHOLOGISTS, PAST AND PRESENT. 
BY PAUL LEVERKUHN, M. D., EUKINOGRAD CASTLE, BULGARIA, 
Corresponding Member American Ornithologists’ Union, 
In the following lines I shall endeavor to give some notes 
on my collection of ornithologists’ portraits, which is said to 
be the richest one in the world. The reader will perhaps 
cry out, that it is a curious idea to make a collection of 
photographs of naturalists, instead of their books, or better, 
of the natural objects themselves. But to my mind it is very 
interesting to know the physiognomies of scientific men, who 
smoothed our paths, who stepped further on the difficult 
way of exploration, and who succeeded in obtaining the 
most remarkable results. So I began to form an ornitholo- 
gists’ album, besides collections of specimens of natural 
history; and Iam happy to state that my collection now 
surpasses all others. 
As the arts of photographing, daguerreotyping, wood-cut- 
ting, and lithographing were not known in the time of 
Aristotle and Pliny, it is not astonishing that portraits of 
birds alone exist for that period ; and, I regret to add, they 
are of very dubious origin. But we are accustomed to date 
our science from these ancient times; therefore, it is abso- 
lutely necessary to begin with them. Then a long while 
rolls by without record. In the middle ages we find the 
celebrated Konrad von Gesner of Ziirich, Ulysses Aldrovan- 
dus, Albertus Magnus, and Olaus Wormius—the latter being 
the first ornithologist at a prince’s court. The portrait of 
